This is a striking carved jar by Toni Roller.  She is a daughter of Margaret Tafoya and is known for her classic shapes and exquisite stone polished pottery.   This larger jar is a wide shape with just a slight neck.  Around the shoulder are 48 carved feathers.  Toni’s feathers are distinctive in style with the straight sides and slight curve at the base.  Over the course of her long career, it has become one of her signature carved designs due to the visual strength of the symmetry of the feathers.  Creating a piece this size with this number of feathers (at 83 years old) is remarkable.   The jar is very highly polished and fired a deep black.  It is signed on the bottom in the clay, “Toni Roller”.  Toni has said of her traditional style of pottery:

“It’s important to start from scratch and do it the old way. People should understand how difficult the process is and why it takes so long to make pottery. If you are going to be a potter, you are not going to mind all the hard work involved in gathering the clay and the materials. It’s time-consuming, but in the end you are so happy to have this clay that just started as chunks in rock form. Then, coming out with the beautiful final pieces of pottery. How did it come about? With your hands and patience. That is such a good feeling.” Toni Roller, Spoken Through Clay